Christmas Around the World

This month in our class we have been celebrating holidays around the world. We began in America with Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, comparing the similarities and differences between the two.

We then departed for a ‘holiday globe trot’, some of which was inspired by A Year of Many Firsts, while also weaving in the heritage of our own community members. Each day we traveled with ‘Scott’ (our fictional character who trotted the globe for us). He shared interesting facts and customs of various countries from around the world leaving us notes and fact sheets in our travel suitcase.

Over the two-week period we visited Russia, France, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Mexico, Australia, Germany, and Finland (where our very own Ms. Anna was born) through books, video, songs and crafts. Discovering artifacts from each destination quickly became a favorite activity of our class each day. We learned about the gift givers in each country and how children celebrate. La Befana, Father Frost, Lucia girls, Star boys and Joulupukki all became common words to hear around our class. Our focus was to share the concrete experiences of children in each country.